Your Party to stand in 2026 Holyrood election

Your Party members have voted to stand in the 2026 Holyrood election, with the party’s co-founder Zarah Sultana saying Scotland deserves better than “a politics that wears the veneer of progressivism”.

The vote took place during the founding conference of Your Party Scotland in Dundee, with 69.8% of the party’s members backing the move.

The process for selecting candidates and developing policy is now expected to begin as early as next week.

Immediately after the result was announced Ms Sultana – who is the party’s only Westminster MP – gave a speech in which she took aim at the SNP and Scottish Greens.

The Coventry South MP said: “While this Westminster Government oppresses people abroad, it punishes people in Scotland too, across the NHS, local government, schools and community services, people feel the strain.

“Budgets tighten, expectations for managed decline is presented as realism.

“And what’s striking is how often that settlement is backed by parties who claim to be progressive, a political class that is managing cuts and scarcity instead of fighting for transformation.

“Scottish people deserve better than a politics that wears the veneer of progressivism while still pushing through cuts that decimate our communities, and that’s what you get with the SNP and the Greens.”

She added: “We can do better than that.

“In fact, you deserve better than that, and Your Party exists to oppose cuts, and I’m glad that you have voted to put candidates on a no-cuts platform, because that is the socialist position.”

Earlier her fellow co-founder Jeremy Corbyn, who currently sits in Westminster as an Independent MP, told the conference it was up to the people of Scotland whether they want another independence referendum.

He said: “As far as I’m concerned, I’ve always had the position that if the people in Scotland and the Scottish organisations want a referendum to decide the future of Scotland, that is their choice.”